


Tumblr Drabbles

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist Steve Rogers, Asian Stephen Strange, Fluff and Crack, I don't care if you like it or not, I'll indicate that in the chap notes too, I'll stick warnings on chapters lmao, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Stephen-centric stuff, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tumblr drabbles, do not fucking comment about how he's Asian, each chap is a different pairing, either shut up and read it or FO, this is just gunna be a mess of drabbles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-06-01 13:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15144299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: These are short little Tumblr drabbles- I'll indicate which pairing is which chapter both here and in the beginning of each chap. The pairings will vary.Chap 1- Stony- fashion designer!Steve/ muse Tony. Chap 2- IronStrange- non power AU. Chap 3- IronStrange- wedding AU. Chap 4- WinterIron crack AU. Chap 5- high school FrostIron AU. Chap 6- IronStrange- magical Stephen and non-powered Tony. Chap 7- BDSM AU with Steve/Natasha/Tony. Chap 8- figure skating AU with Tony/ Bucky. Chap 9- Bruce Wayne/ Tony Stark non powered AU. Chap 10- random Tony/Bucky/Sam AU.





	1. Walk, Walk Fashion Baby

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes when I write drabbles for Tumblr I like them enough to want to migrate them to my A03 account, so here some of them are! Not all will be on here, just the ones I like best or the ones I think are the most creative. They're all also a sizable length too, so none of the short bois will be in here.
> 
> This first boi is a fashion designer Steve/ muse Tony AU in which Steve designs Tony some suits.

“Look, I’m just saying men’s fashion is boring,” Steve tells Natasha. “Women get all these options and men get a suit jacket, and now it’s navy instead of black, and oh look, a white one, and that one is  _cream_ , how exciting,” he says sarcastically.

Natasha gives him a bored look. “Its the sacrifice men have to made for actually getting fucking  _pockets_. And comfort. If you ever find the asshole that made fake pockets a thing give me their address because I’d like to murder them.”

Steve sighs because yeah alright, good point. “Will do. But I’m just saying that men need to take notes from like… John Boyega or something. Actually black men have good style in general unless they’re Sam,” he says. Sam is allergic to clothing that isn’t work out gear and its sad because he has a beautiful body and he just desecrates it like that. 

But then he could walk around in a paper bag and Bucky wouldn’t give a damn so what’s it matter to him? And Bucky’s fashion, ugh. He’s like cyber punk meets goth meets the raccoon that got into his old neighbors’ meth lab that one time. This is why he’s always preferred hanging out with women, they tend to dress better but then he ended up friends with a bunch of people who’d prefer to rock the homeless look over looking nice. Its a travesty, really.

Natasha snorts, “whatever, Rogers. Men don’t need to look good, no one’s paying attention to what they wear to award shows,” she points out.

Steve rolls his eyes, “aside from the obvious sexism that’s the  _point_. Why aren’t men offended about that? I want to look good and for people to notice, and I don’t want to look like a fucking penguin in the middle of a sea of even more boring penguins. When did men lose their individuality?” he asks, shaking his head. 

Most of his classmates wanted to go into women’s fashion thanks to the extra creativity there but Steve wants to introduce men to color again and maybe this time someone will inform men that wearing a nice pair of red pants and a scarf will make you attractive, not gay. And if you’re gay then great, you’re a well dressed gay. God knows he has no idea how gay men looking good became a stereotype when every gay man he knows dresses like a ten dollar hooker on Two Dollar Tuesday. But then the only gay guy he knows is Bucky- the rest are all bisexual or pansexual. But Quill, Sam, and Thor don’t dress any better than Bucky really.

“Died in World War Two,” Nat says and Steve disagrees.

“Actually I think the nineties and early two thousands murdered men’s trends. I mean the seventies and eighties weren’t too great but you had the grunge look, which is hot on the right guy. Then the nineties and early thousands happened and god even know what the hell that was-  _no one_  dressed well. Space aged suits? Hello, the sixties called and it wants the Space Race back.” Natasha snorts and leans into his shoulder, looking over his designs, raising an eyebrow at what she sees.

“That’s uh… designed for one very specific kind of guy. Literally one guy,” she says because he uh… well, drew Tony into the suit. But its not his fault, the guy is basically a human peacock, its hard not to take notice and  _god_  his wardrobe is drab and Steve just wants to see him in some color okay, he’s weak. And why are men so allergic to color unless they’re brown? Excluding Sam. Bucky wears more color and he’s outright admitted he refuses to wear color except sometimes red.

“Its not my fault he needs the fashion police called on him. And he’s the son of a millionaire, what excuse does he have to look like that?” Steve asks, offended on behalf of men’s fashion everywhere. Tony Stark should be wearing suits that make his personality shine, not that disgusting blue  _thing_  he wore last year to that one gala. Its just offensive to the eye for him to dress the way he does.

Natasha rolls her eyes but what the hell does she know, she’s a disaster bisexual trying to court someone named ‘Valkyrie’ and Steve isn’t even certain that’s a real name. In her defense Val is pretty hot though, he’d ignore the fake name and probable alcoholism too.

*

“Ten bucks says he’ll shit his pants,” Natasha says to the group.

“Who cares how Stark reacts, when I asked why he’s never designed anything with me in mind he told me my personality doesn’t lend itself to design and that my reading conspiracy theories would make everything drab,” Bucky says, frowning.

Sam snorts, “well you can’t be mad he told the truth, hon. Last week you came in talking about forests being fake and interdimensional bigfoot. What the hell is he going to make out of that? A Chewbacca costume?” he asks.

Nat can’t help the snort she lets out but Val’s snort trumps her own. “I’ve got twenty for him falling on his ass,” she says.

“Aw, be nice,” Bucky tells her, defending Steve’s honor.

“Just pointing out what I’m seeing,” Val says, gesturing across the court yard. They all turn to find Steve red in the face while Tony flicks through his designs with an obviously critical eye.

*

Tony is going to regret this, he knows he is, but he liked Steve’s designs on paper at least and he’s always been jealous of Pepper’s dresses. How come women get to look nice and men all look the same? Steve had been pleased to finally have someone to agree with him and Tony mostly dealt with it when things went a little weird while Steve waxed poetic about how he has the personality of a peacock and he’s being dressed like a demented pigeon.

When Steve gets him into the suit though he’s shocked. “ _Damn_ ,” he says, looking over himself. The suit is a bright red with gold on it and he thought he’d kind of look… circus-y but it doesn’t feel that way at all. It feels almost like he’s dressed in fine metals tailored to his shape and  _wow_  he looks good. “I hope you know I’m keeping this, I love it and I can’t live without it now.” Steve will have to pry this suit off his cold, dead corpse. Even the  _shoes_  he’s wearing tie the whole look together and he’d been pretty worried about a burgundy shoe. That’s bold, even for him. But Steve made it work.

“After I hand it in for my project,” Steve tells him. “And there’s a few alterations I’d need to make to it anyways. I only guessed your measurements.”

He guessed fucking well then because its a perfect fit. “I have no idea what you’d have to change about it,” he says and Steve opens his mouth, eyes roaming over the suit and then he sighs.

“You wouldn’t even understand the terminology, no offense, its not like I’d expect you to. But the measurements are a little off and there’s some more gold detailing I need to add. I just… wanted to see what it’d look like on its inspiration,” he says.

Tony turns and examines himself from behind and wow, his ass looks fabulous in red. Hmm. “I hope this thing gets graded some time in the next two weeks because I have an event to wear this to,” he says.

Steve smiles a little, “I’ll do my best.”

*

To say Steve is lucky, and it turns out its not even  _luck_  since Natasha sent Tony his way, is an understatement. Tony ends up wearing his suit and people fucking  _love_ it.  _Tony_  loves it too and because he’s rich and presumably has a lot of money to throw at people he throws a lot of money at Steve for the suit and something to wear for some rich people Pride event. Lucky for him Steve has been dreaming up dressing Tony in pride flags for well over a year and already has a jacket half made. Though with his newfound cash he buys nicer materials and half scraps his original design for something new.

When Tony sees it he raises an eyebrow, which might worry Steve if he hadn’t done the same thing with the red suit before he got it on. “Just go put it on,” Steve tells him, picking up the clothing and handing it to Tony.

“Hmm. Never really saw myself as a white guy but I’ll have some faith in you,” he says and Steve snorts.

“Hate to break it to you, honey, but you’re pretty white. Beautiful olive undertone thanks to your Italian heritage but white as hell,” he says.

Tony laughs, “I mean clothing, not skin tone,” he says, shaking his head and walking off with the suit. When he returns to look in the mirror he looks impressed.

“I wasn’t sure about these sequins but these actually look good, expensive too. And I know you’re working on a budget,” he says, turning a little and catching the light beautifully. The sequins cascade down the jacket in pride colors and, because maybe Steve is a little bit of a shit disturber, he put in a few black and brown lines too. They’re almost well hidden, but they’re there. The sequins fade out in an uneven line about halfway down Tony’s back and arms into a crisp white, which continues on the pant and Steve gave him black shoes. Its a bold look, but one Tony can carry well with his personality.

“If anyone can pull of so many sparkles its you,” he says. All those sequins had been a fucking  _bitch_  to sew on individually, not to mention in a short amount of time, and he has school. He ended up sewing those bitches on in class too. But the end result is Tony in a beautiful sparkling pride flag looking like he’s prepared to walk into the room like he owns it. That just makes the suit look that much better.

“I’ve always wanted to wear sparkles but couldn’t really find any I liked. I have to admit I was a little worried when you said you were going to go full out with the flag. I kind of expected to look like a rainbow threw up on me- you know, like obnoxious stripes and shit, but the sequins are inspired,” he says. And it helps that each stripe is only two sequins wide, which makes it looks a hell of a lot less blocky. The colors fading into each other plus the occasional break of black and brown make it look less ostentatious than it could have been. And, of course, the fact that Tony has a big enough and bright enough personality to make it work without overpowering him helps.

“Also,” Tony adds, undoing the jacket, “I’m fond of the lining  _and_  impressed you got my sexuality right,” he says, revealing the bisexual pride flag that lines it. That had been last minute and Steve had considered just going with white but he changed his mind last minute because the inside of the jacket probably won’t be seen much or at all anyways. It’d be a fun little treat for Tony.

Steve grins, “well, you know the old saying. Takes one to know one. And I thought it’d be fun.”

*

Its not really how Tony imagined his public coming out to go but the jacket is stunning and Steve’s work should be shown off, really. He was  _easily_  the best dressed and also basically the only one who looked like he was  _at_  a charity event for LGBT+ people too. Of course he hardly expects him and Steve to be at the front of men’s fashion the next day and Steve just about shits, but hey, Tony is a beautiful peacock and he’s been done the disservice of being dressed like a demented pigeon.

*

“I just…” Steve says slowly, reading his name off the magazine again. “I just thought you were too stunning to be dressing like a peasant,” he murmurs.

Yeah, and he’s one to talk. Not only is Steve hot, like  _really_  hot, but he can pull off that beard  _and_  make it look nice with a suit. That’s goals that Tony will never achieve without looking like one of those Duck Dynasty shitheads squeezed into another of Steve’s beautiful designs.

He grins, “think you can make flowers work on me? I’ve always wanted to try something floral,” he says. But whatever he finds is usually hideous or just something he doesn’t like even if it is nice.

Steve drops the magazine and looks over, “oh honey, I can make you look like the damn  _king_  of flowers. I should go fairy themed, you have the face for it. Sharp features, but whimsical. Stunning, I have ideas,” he says, all but launching himself off the couch and into his fresh new design palace, designed by Tony because Steve might know clothes but Tony knows space almost as well as he knows machines. 

And if he’s going to have a personal designer he’d rather like to sleep with he should shower him with gifts for his pretty suits. That friend of his, the slippery redhead, says that seducing him should be easy and Tony’s hoping it’ll take less effort than her attempts with the alcoholic with an attitude problem. Tony had decided that he loved her on the spot.

Steve though, Tony has  _plans_  for him.


	2. ER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a non-power AU with Stephen in his pre-Doc Strange surgeon role. Its focused primarily on Stephen as a character with a touch of IronStrange in it.
> 
> Warning: Nazis (also fuck fuck Nazis).

Stephen hates working in the ER but Christine  _insists_  that he pull some hours there. Truthfully he only does it out of respect for Christine, but respect for her doesn’t mean that he has to like it. Nick comes running up and Stephen rolls his eyes, prepared for yet  _another_  wrong diagnoses that he will have to fix when he stops in front of him, huffing. “There’s been a nasty accident not far from here. We’re about to get flooded so I suggest making sure there are OR rooms free,” he says. 

“I already know which ones are free,” Steven tells him. “Because unlike some people I do my job,” he adds under his breath. Nicky gives him an annoyed look but says nothing as Stephen goes to make sure the supplies they will need will be within easy reach and, true to Nick’s word, the hospital is flooded less than fifteen minutes later. He works mostly methodically, most wounds are superficial in nature, but when Christine calls him over to work on someone else he’s relieved. If she’s called him over than she’s got something more his speed and he’s damn tired of stitching whining people.

When he gets there though Christine looks right irritated. He raises an eyebrow and she makes an annoyed noise, “he wants a guy- his spine is a mess and he won’t let me treat him because I’m a  _woman_.” Her distaste and disgust is clear and frankly Stephen is surprised. Hospitals don’t tend to be places where people care about that kind of thing- the sick don’t get the luxury of deeply held prejudice but this guy is apparently steadfast clinging to his.

“You know I can hear you, right?” the patient tells presumably Christine but its Stephen who responds.

“Something tells me she doesn’t give a damn,” Stephen says, coming up behind the patient and examining what Christine had called a mess and frankly that was being polite about it. “I’m assuming you were in one of the cars closest to the initial crash, then?” he asks. Nasty pile of cars after one spun out and hit another, they think, but the results are bloody nonetheless.

“Yeah,” the guy mumbles.

“Unlucky,” Stephen murmurs more to himself than the patient and in the chaos his comment gets lost anyways. He asks a few more routine questions, figuring out the best course of action, before he cuts the man’s shirt carefully to get a better look at the damage. When he catches the snatch of ink its not really unusual- tattoos are especially popular for young people- but something makes him cut a little higher than he needs to.

His eyebrows fly up and across the room its like Christine  _knows_  to look up because they make eye contact. He jerks his head, gesturing for her to come over and she does, reluctantly. When she sees the tattoo her jaw drops and Stephen snickers a little. Fucking idiot has no idea that Stephen isn’t white- he came up from behind and thanks to his deep voice and lack of an accent this moron had assumed he was white. Or at least given the rather large swastika on his shoulder he assumes the patient thinks he’s white.

“If you’re not comfortable-” Christine starts but Stephen shakes his head.

“Are you kidding me?” he hisses, “this idiot has no idea I’m not white, this is hilarious.” Christine looks confused,  _very_ confused, but Stephen has always delighted in making a fool out of people with stupid, pseudoscientific beliefs and this is no exception. So he’ll continue to do as much work as possible before his patient catches on to the fact that Stephen is very much Asian.

Christine shakes his head at him and walks off. “Uh, everything alright back there?” the patient asks and Stephen snorts. Not even remotely, the fact that this guy isn’t dead or even unstable momentarily is a god damn miracle. Or, more likely, indicative that something else is wrong and he can’t see it yet.

“Nice tattoo,” Stephen says in a pleasant tone that his idiot patient assumes is approval if his response is any indication.

“Oh I… wouldn’t have figured someone here would understand,” he says eventually.

Stephen lets out a small laugh, stepping around the bed and into the patient’s view. “Oh I can’t say I understand,” he says, pleasant smirk on his face. The patient jerks and Stephen almost winces for him given the circumstances but its his own racist opinions that did that to him. Stephen would lower the dosage of his pain killers too if not for a potential malpractice suit. He’s sure it wouldn’t matter in the end, Tony has the best lawyers money can buy and he’s hardly short on cash himself, but he figures its best to play this right. “If you’d like I can grab a white man,” he says, same pleasant tone in his voice and the patient looks damn confused but Stephen knows exactly what Nick will think of this. The man doesn’t work well when uncomfortable- a bad trait for a doctor.

He goes off to fetch Nick, sending him over to the Nazi while he goes back to stitching patients who are whining more than usual. Ugh. If only he could be a doctor without the whole ‘dealing with people’ thing. Christine says its impossible but Stephen firmly believes in medicine without people. Let robots gather their symptoms, he can deal with them  _after_  they’re knocked out.

“Stephen,” Nick says from behind him and he turns, dropping his tools in the small tray sitting beside him. “I can’t… that guy… he’s a  _Nazi_  Stephen, I can’t work on that.”

He raises an eyebrow, “and you’re talking to me  _because_?” he asks even though he knows where this is going.

Nick sighs, looks away with a clearly conflicted look on his face before he turns back. “I know this is  _profoundly_  selfish to ask but…” his words cut off and he looks away again.

Stephen gets the point anyways. “Fine then, I’d appreciate you in the operating room though. I’m not certain Christine will be able to resist killing the man and someone should keep her from doing so,” he says, walking swiftly away.

**

Its almost twenty seven hours later when he finally gets done with the surgery. He’d been right about not seeing everything that was wrong, the guy almost died four times, but Stephen managed to save his ass while both Nick and Christine watched in utter confusion as he did his best to save a Nazi’s life.

Tony meets him outside and he all but collapses onto him, which probably isn’t fair since he’s nearly a foot taller than the poor man but he handles it well. “I am ready to die,” Stephen mumbles into the top of Tony’s head.

“Yeah,” Tony says from underneath him, “I kind of got that memo. Guess surgery went badly?” he asks, hedging his bets Stephen guessed. He’s never taken surgeries gone wrong well, not that they happened often, but this isn’t that.

“Oh it went fine. The patient almost died four times but he’s fine. That’s not what’s on my mind though,” he says, pulling away to stop squishing his poor partner. Tony frowns, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. God, he’s beautiful- dark features and fair skin, its a stunning combination. It helps that Tony is like him in a lot of ways and the ways in which they differ aren’t differences that draw them apart like they had with him and Christine.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, reading what Christine and Nick hadn’t been able to on his features.

“I’m fine, Tony. Mostly. But the man I just saved is a Nazi.” Tony looks almost more disgusted than Christine and Nick had when they discovered that fun fact.

“You should have let him die,” he says in a harsh, unforgiving tone but Stephen knows if it came down to it Tony wouldn’t have killed the man. But he probably wouldn’t have done what Stephen did either. He’s far far less vengeful than Stephen is.

*

There days when Tony doesn’t understand Stephen- they’re rare, but they happen. And usually when he’s confused Christine can fill him in, but this time they’re both at a loss as they watch Stephen fuss over the man who clearly wants Stephen the hell away from him. It disgusts Tony to watch the way the guy fucking  _cringes_  every time Stephen comes near him when he saved that piece of shit’s fucking  _life_  but Stephen doesn’t seem to react at all.

“I don’t understand that,” Christine murmurs, “I thought he was an asshole for requesting a male doctor. Turns out he was worse.”

Tony shakes his head, “if I were you I would have make it look like an accident,” he murmurs.

“I was almost sure that’s what Stephen was going to do, almost perfect record be damned, but I swear he tried harder to not let him die,” Christine says. She’s baffled and frankly so is Tony. Its not like Stephen could possibly have any love for Nazis but their Nazi friend decides to ask for the both of them.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks eventually, flinching as Stephen continues to ensure he’s not about to die or whatever other doctor things he’s supposed to look for. Tony shakes his head, clenching his jaw at the utter disrespect. Its painful to watch Stephen get treated that way. Tony hopes Stephen lowers the dosage on those pain meds.

Stephen stops for a moment and looks down at the man in the bed before he lets out a soft, cruel smile. “I thought about letting you die- I’ll be honest and say the world would be better for your loss. Not that I’d even call it that much. But then I thought why kill him when you can get revenge? So I kept you alive, I worked  _hard_  to do it too, and I did it because there is nothing more satisfying to me to know that for a man like you having an Asian man and a woman save his life is a fate worse than death. Every time you even  _think_  you’re superior or better you’ll have to remember my face, my  _race_ , and know that the only reason you even have a thought in that vile mind of yours is because  _I_ allowed it to happen. Welcome to your waking nightmare every day for the rest of your shitty life, asshole. I am  _infinitely_  pleased to have delivered you here,” Stephen tells him in a low, threatening tone.

Tony and Christine share a surprised look, “remind me not to piss him off,” Tony tells her.

She swears under her breath, “no shit. I knew he was spiteful but  _wow_ , that’s a new level even for him.”

“Still think the Nazi was better off dead,” Tony mumbles. But he has to admit Stephen’s creative method of revenge is… well, creative.

**

Tony doesn’t understand Stephen’s love for watches, they’re utterly useless, but he deserves something after that Nazi fiasco so Tony and Christine hunt down a couple rare, expensive watches for gifts. Stephen raises an eyebrow when Tony hands him the box with their spoils in it but the absolute delight on his face when he finds the watches inside is so worth the price he paid for them.

“Thank you,” Stephen says, pulling a Rolex out of its box. “I’ve been lusting after this for  _years_  but its always been just a little out of my price range.” And he’s terrible with money, Tony knows. It goes out almost faster than it goes in. But he deserved a nice gift and Christine happened to remember what it looked like when Tony only remembered that it was a Rolex. Between the two of them they managed though.

“I thought you should get a little something nice, you’ve had a stressful few weeks,” he says, wrapping an arm around Stephen’s waist. 

Stephen leans down and kisses his temple, “having you around always makes things better. And I guess you too Christine,” he adds in a far less loving tone.

Christine rolls her eyes, “typical,” she says, shaking her head fondly.

 

 


	3. Ball and Chain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU in which Stephen and Tony are getting married and Stephen is annoyed with all the 'marriage is a trap Tony, run' jokes.

Stephen is sure Tony doesn’t mean anything by it and maybe he’s just used to being single, he’s been single most of his life so it’d make sense. But it just annoys him that Tony never says anything when people make jokes about his upcoming marriage to Stephen as some kind of evil trap meant to strip him of his freedom.

“I know it’s probably selfish,” Stephen tells Christine, “but its offensive to call me a prison to my face.” Tony always looks a little confused when people say it but he never actually says anything about it.

Christine frowns over her lunch, “actually that’s probably the least selfish thing you’ve requested of him,” she says.

“Alright, I know he’s afraid of dogs but I am not giving up my corgi! We’ve bonded,” he says. Accidentally because he’s never been a pet person but Wong had some puppies and decided Stephen’s place was a good place to get rid of one. In his defense after two hours Stephen finally understood that Brooklyn Nine Nine skit where Rosa claims she’d kill everyone in the room and then herself for the dog.

“Stephen, he was  _terrified_  of the dog and I told you I’d take it so you’d still see him and you told Tony to get over himself. You’re lucky he loves you because that was just insensitive,” she says.

“Well he likes the dog now,” Stephen mumbles in his defense. And by likes that mostly means Tony doesn’t run from the dog in terror anymore. Its not like the fear had been warranted anyways, Sushruta is harmless unless you’re a shoe.

Christine sighs, “because you forced him to deal with the dog instead of compromising.  _That_  was selfish when you had a viable solution to your problem and a terrified partner, but wanting Tony to point out that marrying you isn’t going to end his life or his freedom is pretty normal. I’ve always hated that, men treating marriage like its the end of the world when usually  _they’re_  the ones to ask. Besides, Tony doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to- he’s pretty famous for that so the jokes are extra stupid,” she points out.

Stephen prickles a little, “women make those jokes too,” he says- he’s heard them. Stupid reporters, he’s never liked them. None of them can ever relay his research in a way that’s actually accurate. Scientific journalism is an absolutely horrible field given how it botches the findings ninety nine percent of the time. He and Tony have bonded over it and the fact that neither of them are any good at explaining their research in layman’s terms. Though they disagree that an expert should be able to do that- the entire point of an expert is that they know things others  _don’t_ , not that they should be able to teach all. Only some people can do what he can anyways, and the only person who’s a step above Tony is a Wakandan princess. He thinks Tony should give himself more credit.

“Really, Stephen? I’d like to point out that women are always the nags, the balls and chains, and the gatekeepers to freedom. There are cake toppers with brides dragging their husbands to the wedding- so yeah, women make the jokes too but they’re also mostly the butt of them and its usually guys urging their friends to run away. Guess you got relegated to the role of woman,” she says.

Stephen makes an offended noise, “how the hell did  _that_  happen?” he asks. First of all the entire  _point_  of his and Tony’s relationship is that none of them are women so how’d  _he_  get stuck in that role? Tony is shorter. And cuter. “This is because I’m Asian, isn’t it?” he asks, squinting.

Christine snorts, “actually I think it might have more to do with Tony being a living embodiment of every white male power fantasy ever and his fans don’t want to give up that toxic stereotype, but I guess it could be racism,” she says, trying at least to give him some credit.

“Once a fan mailed him a bag of his own hair. I think the fact that his name was ‘Gary’ says everything you need to know,” Stephen says. “And I am  _not_  a woman nor am I enacting some convoluted plot to trap Tony with marriage. Does the public know about divorce?” That and Christine made a point when she said Tony doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to. And  _he_  proposed. Stephen had been mad about it because he’d been planning to and then Tony ruined his carefully thought out plans. He even used the dog in the proposal and it was so sweet he cried and now Wong has pictures he’ll certainly use to blackmail him later.

“Good luck to you, I don’t think I could handle dating a celebrity let alone one that nets me stupid jokes about how marrying said celebrity will ruin his life,” Christine says, shaking her head.

*

Stephen didn’t even want to do this stupid interview but Tony insisted, then brought up the dog when Stephen stuff refused. He mostly only agreed because Tony pointed out he’d been afraid of his own house for weeks before he finally got used to the dog and even then Sushruta is the only dog he doesn’t hate. Turns out he’d nearly been eaten by a dog as a child and Stephen felt a little bad about forcing him to deal with the dog so  _fine_ , he’ll do the stupid interview and deal with the stupid jokes about Tony’s freedom like he didn’t walk into this engagement himself since  _he_  asked but whatever.

When the stupid reporter makes the dreaded joke Stephen rolls his eyes on cue, letting out an annoyed noise but its Tony’s reaction that catches the reporter’s attention. “You must be straight,” Tony says, catching Stephen’s attention with it too because what’s that got to do with it? Which is what the reporter asks. Tony snorts, “only someone who’s had the benefit of knowing their right to marry is never in question would ever make such a fucking stupid joke,” he says, irritation written all over his features.

Oh, good point actually. Stephen never considered that because he’s never really considered himself the marrying type. But then neither had Tony and here they both are, quite smitten with each other.

“I… uh… that’s not what I meant,” the reporter stumbles out and Stephen rolls his eyes again. Sure it wasn’t, but he doubts there will be an answer if he asks what  _was_  meant by the comment.

Tony rolls his eyes too but its much more theatrical than Stephen’s, impressive considering how dramatic Christine likes to remind him he is. Personally he doesn’t think he’s that dramatic at all. “Sorry, but I fail to see how people consistently insulting Stephen to his face by acting like being married to him is some kind of hardship I’m going to have to face can be anything less than bullshit perpetuated by a group of people who’ve taken their rights to relationships for granted. I’m marrying Stephen because I love him, and I’m excited to spend the rest of my life with him even if I have to put up with his stupid dog. If I wasn’t happy about marrying him than I wouldn’t have proposed because unlike the general public I don’t think marriage is supposed to be a prison where couples suffer. And it helps that he’s good in bed,” he adds and Stephen lets out a sharp laugh.

“Yes, that’s right, I’m quite a catch,” he says, nose in the air. “And Tony is alright too,” he adds almost as an afterthought. He really is though, and he’s patient with Stephen in a way he rarely gets from others. Christine has told him not to take it for granted but Stephen already knows he takes full advantage of Tony’s patience. But he does appreciate Tony,  _really_  appreciates him because they have an understanding with each other that most don’t. He understands Stephen’s arrogance and his fears and he’s always so willing to help him when he needs it. And he can  _see_  when Stephen needs it. No one else can.

He looks over at Tony and smiles, knowing his love is translated in the look and Tony smiles back, emotion radiating off his features too. Stephen straightens a little and faces the reporter, “also, the only ball and chain in our relationship is stupid media personal such as yourself following us around all day snapping pictures and making stupid comments,” he says.

Tony lets out a sharp laugh, “god, I love you,” he says, weaving his fingers through Stephen’s.

“Well,” he says, “you are lucky to have me.” And he’s so,  _so_  lucky to have Tony too but he’s not going to say that to the cameras. People, contrary to what they might like to think, are not privy to their relationship.

Bonus Scene:

Tony didn’t want to get married in a church, he’s a fucking atheist and Stephen is agnostic, but his parents whined and cried until Tony finally gave up. Stephen, who’s much more used to fighting with his parents, had been prepared to drag it out longer but at the rate things were going they’d have to push back the wedding date because Stephen’s parents are more stubborn than Tony and Stephen combined. Which is frankly terrifying.

But here he is in what he has to admit is a pretty church even if he doesn’t believe in the deity its build to worship with Stephen standing in front of him and his dumb dog sitting between them, tongue lolling out of his face. That thing is plotting their deaths, Tony knows it, but when it eats them alive Tony will tell Stephen he told him so. 

The priest or whatever, the fuck if Tony knows, he just wanted to marry Stephen in peace before his parents got involved, prattles on until he gets to the part where Tony is supposed to do the vow thing. Tony repeats the words in a mostly empty way, knowing Stephen won’t care that he has no real interest in a religious ceremony that’s only taking place because his parents threw an epic  _fit_  at least until the part where he’s supposed to honor and  _obey_  Stephen?

“O-what?” he asks, giving Stephen a  _look_ as his eyebrows fly up. “Honey if I don’t obey Pepper you have no chance. I’ll honor you just fine, but I’ll obey over my dead body,” he says.

Stephen throws his head back and laughs, “I had him throw it in there to shake things up a little, make it interesting because you know, these things are boring and I figured the audience might appreciate the show,” he says.

Off to the side Stephen’s parents cluck in disapproval, “just ruined his own wedding,” his mother mumbles but Stephen hears it- Tony swears he has super hearing.

“On the contrary, mother, I made my wedding about  _me_ rather than you. And you know, Tony,” he says almost like its an afterthought but it isn’t. The entire point of this stunt was to give him a voice in the ceremony he hadn’t wanted because, despite his outward arrogance and generally harsh personality, Stephen has a deep capacity to care and he always goes out of his way to make sure Tony feels appreciated. Even if that means screwing up his wedding ceremony and risking his parents’ wrath later.


	4. Drunk Buys

Tony walks into the living room with a large box in his hands and perches in Bucky’s lap. “Babe, we need to have a talk about you drunk buying things because I have no  _fucking_  clue why the hell you bought what is in this box,” he says.

Natasha’s head whips up, “what’s in the  _booooox_?” she asks in a surprising imitation of Brad Pitt and Tony resents the fact that she and Bucky made him watch that fucking movie.

“A replica of Gwyneth Paltro’s head,” he says without missing a beat.

Bucky looks surprised and leans over the box’s edge, “really?” he asks, curiosity written on his features.

“No Bucky, why the fuck would you buy something like that?” Though he shouldn’t be surprised at this point. For some reason he bought one thousand communion crackers and he’s Jewish, not Catholic. They still have a good three hundred of them left because they’re fucking tired of eating Jesus. Or at least he thinks that’s how that works, but either way they taste like cardboard and none of them want any more of them.

“He bought a pink kitty fur suit once, why are we shocked?” Natasha asks, raising an eyebrow.

“We agreed never to speak of that of the fifteen hundred dildos again,” Bucky says, looking haunted. Like he has the right, all those dildos showing up to Tony’s house brought actual media attention and Natasha made a bunch of memes about it that got really popular. But then that shouldn’t surprise him either considering she’s gotten so good at making memes she got them banned in Russia.

“Did he order some dumb shit online again? Ban him from booze,” Sam says, walking into the living room and shaking his head. 

“But then who would bring us these wonderful gifts?” Bucky asks, wide eyed.

Tony sighs, “honey, do you even remember what you bought?” he asks. Bucky stares at the box for a long few moments.

“I don’t remember getting drunk to be honest,” he says eventually. “But I have a bad memory. I know I know your middle name but I can’t remember that either.” Yeah, Tony thinks that’s for the best now that Edward is attached to sparkly vampires that abuse so he leaves it.

“You should maybe not drink. I mean you once sent your ex a 3D printed model of your ass with a sticky note attached that said ‘suck on this’. That barely even makes sense,” he points out.

Sam laughs, “ah, the rare time he mails things instead of having things mailed to him. Remember when he set up that automatic mailing system to send his fifth grade teacher a copy of his degree every day for the rest of her life because she told him he’d never make it anywhere in life? I remember that because that’s the moment he proved her right,” Sam says, pleased with his insult.

Bucky flips him off but Sam pays no attention to that. “Remember when you bought Sam twelve falcons? Or spent a thousand dollars on a bunch of ant farms for Scott? I still don’t know  _who_  that is,” Tony says. “But that time you bought ten parrots and sent them to Hammer with a note that read ‘they’re trained to mock’ is probably one of the funniest I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing,” he says.

“Scott’s the guy that’s got a kid,” Nat says like that helps him any.

“I thought that was May. I am I missing something? I thought the kid’s dad was dead?” Or was it his uncle? Well shit, he can’t just ask Peter which family members of his bit the fucking dust, that’s rude.

“No, Scott has his own kid. Cassie,” Bucky says.

Tony frowns. “Well I know which kid you’re talking about now, but I thought she was Clint’s... The fuck is that new one of his named then?” 

“Nathaniel because the little fucker came out a boy and ruined naming it after me,” Natasha says, obviously bitter about this. Tony thinks the baby has won there though.

He shakes his head. “Whatever, I’ll figure Scott out later. Point is you have a problem and we can’t continue to eat Jesus every time you get sad drunk. We’ve probably eaten like five Jesus’ by now.”

Natasha starts laughing and Sam sighs. “You know when those moments happen and you think ‘if someone heard this out of context they’d think we’re nuts’. Well that’s most of the interactions I have with you people. I’d say its white people but T’Challa and Rhodey do it too. Like come on man, black people aren’t furries,” he says, shaking his head. Tony laughs because he’s ninety percent sure T’Challa has no idea what a furry even  _is_  let alone how that relates to being Black Panther but Sam’s inability to get past it is hilarious.

“I think its kind of a fun quirky trait,” Bucky says, grinning a little.

Tony sighs, “honey. Consider this box and your lack of knowledge on what’s in this box. You should probably ban yourself from the computer when drunk.”

“It’s not  _that_  bad,” Bucky says in his own defense, giving Tony that sad, puppy dog look that really does make him want to scoop Bucky up and kiss him better. Not that he does because that’s enabling.

“Bucky bee, Buzzfeed has written listicles of weird shit you’ve boughten when drunk. You have a problem with drunk online shopping. Remember the five life sized Daleks you bought because you thought they were cute and you’ve never even  _heard_  of the show Doctor Who?” Because he does. Two of them are in his bedroom and he’d rather they leave because they give him nightmares with the creepy shadows they cast.

“Hold up,” Sam says, holding his hand in the air. “Did you just call him ‘Bucky bee’?”

Tony frowns, “yeah?” he asks, unsure why this is unusual when he gives everyone weird nicknames. He called Sam ‘birdman’ for over a year until Clint got annoyed because before Sam he was the only one who was referenced by birds and then he called to Sam’s nicknames too. So now Sam is the annoying little brother and Clint is the boring father. Neither like their reassessments but they both admit that it’s better than Rhodey’s platypus.

“Get the hell out of this house,” Sam says and Tony squints.

“This is  _my_  house,” he points out.

“Its my house now if you’re going to call people gay ass shit like that,” Sam says.

He frowns, “that’s homophobic.”

“Doesn’t count when you’re bisexual, die mad about it and out of my newly acquired home thanks to you saying dumb shit.”

“That’s what he’s going to lose his house over? Not that he thought minimum wage was the same as a living wage?” Nat asks.

“Okay in my defense that makes sense! What the hell is the wage minimuming if its not going into poverty? Now its just ‘weird arbitrary number some rando politician shit out’. Its not my fault I’m logical,” Tony says in his own defense.

“Why is there a taxidermy bat in here?” Bucky asks, pulling the bat out of the box on Tony’s lap. “Oh what the fuck, there’s a rat and an alligator too. And what the hell is  _that_?” he asks. Tony looks in the box and sighs.

“Goat skull. This is why I think you have a problem. You think taxidermy is the work of the devil and yet here it is, sitting in my lap.” Bucky pulls out some more tissue paper and frowns for a moment, leaning into the box and letting out a loud shriek before he shoves Tony and the box off his lap.

Tony lets out an undignified squawk and falls to the ground, watching as Bucky’s weird drunk trinkets fall out. When he spots the spider though he jumps back into Bucky’s lap at a speed faster than anything he knew himself to be capable of. “I swear to fucking  _god_  if that thing is alive I’m leaving you!” he shrieks, ignoring how high his voice is.

Natasha goes over and scoops up the spider, “nope. Not alive,” she reports not that Tony relaxes. He’s maybe picked up some bug fear from Rhodey, who is genuinely terrified of all things insect and most things reptile. He says if it has too many legs or not enough legs it ain’t right. His threshold if four legs and that’s mostly only because he likes dogs otherwise it’d be two.

“Oh hey, I remember why I bought that stuff,” Bucky says excitedly. “Steve was pissing me off so I bought all the things he feared and planned on sticking them in his bed.”

Sam, who seems to like this idea, starts gathering Bucky’s fallen drunk buys back into the box. “What? He’s been pissing me off lately. He can deal with a bat or two in his pillow.”

“I think you’re evil,” Bucky tells him in a low tone.

“It was your idea, dipshit, you’re the evil one,” Sam points out.

“Gunna take that spider?” Tony asks and Sam snorts.

“ _Fuck_  no, those things have no right to look like that. They don’t need that many eyes  _or_  that many legs. God made a mistake with them,” he says, giving the spider a disdainful look.

Natasha frowns, “spiders are really good for ecosystems, god made a mistake with  _humans_ given how invasive and shitty we are. Spiders are good, you leave them alone,” she says, holding the creepy tarantula to her chest.

“I think god made a mistake with wasps and Sam,” Bucky says.

“Please stop drunk buying things I have heart problems and I can’t handle finding more spiders in boxes,” Tony says.

Something must occur to Bucky then because he turns to Sam wide eyed, “you might want to get home before Steve does,” he says but leaves the ominous warning at that.


	5. Dare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random FrostIron high school AU! Also Loki is genderfliud because… well because he’s gender fluid in canon. Though in this he uses ‘they/them pronouns’.
> 
> This one is super short but I thought it was fun so here it is.

Ok, so asking people out because someone dared you to is a dickhead thing to do but the thing is Loki heard the dare so Tony figures what the fuck, full disclosure is already a thing so that won’t blow up in his face later like every romcom ever. “So,” Tony says, walking up to their locker but Loki shuts it in his face before he can say anything else. “Um,” Tony says intelligently.

“You  _do_  know I have ears, right?” Loki asks, head tilted to the side and ok so they look a little pissed but come  _on_ , its not Tony’s fault his friends- minus Rhodey because he’s honestly too good for this world- are a bunch of twats.

“I mean yeah, I can see those, which is why I came over here,” he says. “Because you heard the dare thing,” he clarifies, “which isn’t why I’m asking you out. I wanted to do that anyways but you know, the dare thing gave me a reason and I figured since that’s a thing that happened right here no one can surprise you with some asshole thing my friends did because I already told you I didn’t do this over a dare so the rumor isn’t true. Then we bypass that part in the romcom where the couple breaks up because the one is pissed off at the other for starting a relationship under false pretenses even though they both started the relationship under false pretenses so no one should be mad but I’m technically the only one starting a relationship- well I’m trying  _not_  to- please say something so I’ll shut the hell up,” Tony says, finally running out of air.

Loki stares down at him, assessing him quite like an irritatingly attractive statue presiding over a sea of subjects. Except Tony is only one subject and he really doesn’t like being presided over. “Why should I believe you when you say this isn’t over your stupid friends’ dare?” they ask, glaring over Tony’s shoulder. “Yes, ha ha, you made him ask out the gender fucked freak- very good joke,” Loki says, clapping their hands together in a slow, condescending way. Tony doesn’t get the hate because Loki pulls off androgyny  _perfectly_  and frankly that is an attractive look. People are  _stupid_. 

“I have better things to do than waste my own time asking people out over a dare. Also that’s an asshole thing to do, I’d know considering last year  _I_ was the one being asked out as a joke,” he points out. So okay, he’s a little younger than people in his grade and he wears glasses, is that seriously that unusual? Then for some reason people decided they liked him and mostly stopped being assholes. He’s about ninety percent sure its because they’re all afraid of Rhodey for some stupid reason- the guy is honestly harmless- but he’ll take acceptance regardless.

“Hmm,” Loki mumbles. “I’m not entirely convinced you could plan a decent date,” they say, nose in the air.

Tony grins because he’s actually had this planned for months. “Well I happen to know you’re a horror fan and since the New York Horror Film Festival is happening at the moment I figured we could do that,” he says with more confidence than he feels.

“Never mind, I’m sold and you better have tickets because if you don’t I will be seriously disappointed. But unfortunately I have to go to history so I can listen to the teacher prattle on about shit I don’t care about,” they say, rolling their eyes before turning and walking off. Tony has literally no details on when, where, whatever else but he figures he can grab the details from Loki later. He turns and faces Rhodey, grinning because that went reasonably well.

Rhodey frowns, “dude, you hate horror movies,” he points out.

“Yeah but like… might be a good excuse to crawl into their lap,” he says. Seems reasonable to him but Rhodey doesn’t buy it. Everyone else looks confused because they apparently hadn’t anticipated Tony having an actual interest in Loki.

“I love you man, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I’ll never forget you,” Rhodey tells him, hand pressed to his heart.

Tony frowns, “I have date, not a funeral, Rhodes. Chill with the dramatics.”

Rhodey shakes his head, “Loki is gunna eat you alive, man. This could be the last time I ever get to tell you that you’re awesome and that I’ll miss you when you’re dead.”


	6. Potential

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU where Stephen is still magical but Tony is just himself. Also as always when I write him Stephen is Asian (Nepali specifically). This could constitute as a lowkey soul mate AU.

Stephen spends a lot of time sorting through futures. Its long, tedious work but someone needs to ensure that cosmic threats aren’t about to swallow the earth whole and he’s been promoted to the task in a most unfortunate turn of events. But disaster is never all he finds in the futures he sorts through- he finds everything and anything from Wong adopting a stray cat and then two stray dogs to his discovering an allergy to some rare kind of plant he now avoids. Futures rarely remain consistent, Wong only ends up with one cat and one dog, but occasionally there’s an element or two that remains stubbornly in tact no matter which future it is.

When he runs into Tony Stark he’s trying to buy cat food but he’s butchering the language. It doesn’t help that he can’t really speak it and despite being fluent in Sanskrit, that’s only the basis for Nepali not the whole language. And he rarely speaks Sanskrit, he mostly just reads it. So when Tony steps in and fluently translates what he’s attempting to say to the harasses shopkeeper he’s grateful for a half a second until he looks down. Tony grins up at him, yellow sunglasses perched on his nose and he’s seen seventy thousand futures that start this way but only half of those involve Tony in yellow sunglasses. The other half shows him favoring red and there are three where he’s wearing purple. Stephen is relieved this isn’t one of those futures because all of those particular potential lines of history end with Tony dead.

But staring down at someone he’s watched himself fall in love with over and over again thousands- no, millions of times is… intimidating. “You can say thanks, you know,” Tony tells him, laughing.

Stephen straightens a little, knowing he looks irritated but unable to help that that’s his natural facial expression. “Thanks,” he says in a curt tone and there are about thirty thousand responses Tony could give but he decides its a good plan to go off script.

“Fine, be rude. Next time your cat can starve,” he says and Stephen panics. How is it that he’s messed up an interaction he’s seen thousands of times so badly that he’s created an entirely new line of history? Who even  _does_  that?

“The cat isn’t mine,” he says quickly. “She’s my best friend’s cat but the man refuses to have anything to do with the material so I get stuck with the bill. Thank you for um… translating though, I’m not that great with Nepali.” Despite his ancestry from the country he knows nothing of it, especially not culturally. He thought perhaps he might blend in more here than he had in America but it only resulted in him feeling more American than he’s ever felt considering he spent most of his time in America feeling Nepali. Now he’s just settled in and made himself feel at home with Wong in the sanctum instead of caring about cultural customs.

Tony considers this for a moment before he continues, still off script. “Yeah, I can tell you’re not skilled in the uh, Nepali department. Nice attempt at Sanskrit though,” he says. He has no idea how to respond, not when Tony is still forging his own future and he has no idea how to handle that.

Stephen knows so much about Tony- his favorite color, his preferred music, his best friends names and occupations, his favorite tie even. He knows deeper things too, like Tony’s deep seated fear of failure, his abusive father, his alcoholism, his long undiagnosed ADHD, how much he hates Christmas and not just because he’s an atheist. But does any of that knowledge come in handy now? No, because he doesn’t really know Tony, not really, he just knows what he’s seen. And Tony doesn’t know anything of him at all so really they’re at a disadvantage.

He sighs, “my mother insisted I was fluent as a child, I was rather close to my grandmother and she barely knew English, but I have no evidence for that claim how,” he tells Tony, smiling a little. Tony, in every future he’s seen, responds well to personal stories. Now is no exception- he smiles and thaws a little to Stephen’s previous attitude.

“My nannies came from all over so I know a little of a lot of languages, but I’m fluent in seven,” he says. Stephen knows this too but he lets Tony think this is new information.

“I only knew English when I got here and learned Sanskrit,” he says.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “you learned Sanskrit over Nepali in a country where people speak Nepali? What the hell influenced  _that_?” he asks, laughing at the obvious blunder to an outsider. Its not like he knows Stephen had been reading magical texts and if he were to tell Tony that he’d be called nuts and there’s be a prompt breakup. He’s watched that happen over one hundred thousand times before it simply occurred to him to  _show_  Tony the magic instead of tell him about it. That changed all futures thereafter and only a few resulted in breakups and most of them were over things unrelated to the magic. And he always manages to win Tony back somehow.

“The books I wanted to read were in Sanskrit, not Nepali,” he says, feeling the heat in his cheeks. Tony must find it endearing though because he laughs, shaking his head at Stephen’s obviously bad choice.

*

Wong and the cat give him a dirty look by the time he makes it home with the cat food feeling pleased with himself. Despite his sad attempt at communication to start with he managed to make a good impression afterwards. It helps that he knows Tony’s favorite foods, movies, and activities so planning a perfect date on the fly hadn’t been the most strenuous activity he’s ever had to deal with. Tony responded to it all wonderfully of course and he’s got another date tomorrow. But the cat and Wong don’t look impressed.

“What? If you want the food to be home by dinner get a job,” he tells Wong, depositing the food at his feet.

“You’d let an animal starve over your your attachment to useless material objects like money?” Wong asks, obviously trying to send him on a guilt trip.

“Of course I would,” he lies. He knows Wong fed the cat some of his dinner, Wong  _always_ feeds the cat some of his dinner. The animal isn’t going to starve any time soon.

*

Stephen Strange is fucking  _perfect_  and Tony is starting to wonder what the catch is. Its like he knows everything about Tony and manages to pull off these ridiculous dates that should take months of planning and a lot of in depth knowledge of Tony’s likes and dislikes to get right but he has none of that.

“Maybe he’s a stalker,” Pepper says and Happy perks up, looking out the window of the Tower like he’ll find Stephen floating there looking in at them or something.

“One I’ve never noticed?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Pepper sighs, “Tony you know I love you but you’re as observant as a particularly stupid goat. An Oompa Loompa could be stalking you and you wouldn’t notice it,” she points out.

“Well I would have noticed,” Happy says in his own defense.

Tony isn’t sure that’s true even if Happy is a very dedicated employee who tries his best. Pepper looks skeptical too but she must also has the same reservation about insulting Happy because she doesn’t say anything. “Seriously,” Tony says, “he’s like every fantasy I’ve ever had come to life.” He likes all the same music even if he also likes some weird shit Tony can’t stand, they have the same movie taste even if Stephen also likes those bullshit art films that make Tony want to die, and they even agree politically- something Tony confirmed because he learned from Tiberius. He’s not dating another republican. But he doesn’t really want to date another Steve either so thankfully Stephen has strong opinions but he’s not about to start a protest. The only subject Tony hasn’t gotten a real answer on is the god question.

He’s a staunch atheist partially because he thinks religion is fucking stupid- what kind of god is so arrogant that he has to take attendance- but also because the idea of an omnipotent god with endless powers is scientifically laughable. Stephen seems to skirt the subject though and honestly Tony can deal with some potential belief in a god or two if it means he gets the rest of what’s attached to Stephen. He even acts interested in his charities for children- most for kids leaving abusive homes, but there’s a few that are for the science-inclined. He asks questions and actually listens to the answers.

“Well… maybe he’s just a good fit for you,” Pepper says finally.

Tony sighs, “so were you and we know how that ended,” he says.

“Okay, there were circumstances,” Pepper says. “That wasn’t your fault.”

Yeah, okay so Pepper being a raging lesbian wasn’t his fault obviously and she mostly just chose him because they genuinely  _do_  get along really well sans the romance and whatnot, but still. What if Stephen has some closeted sexuality thing? Actually no, that’d mean he’s secretly straight and that’d be a weird thing to hide and also a bad reason to go on several dates with a guy. But maybe Stephen’s got some other thing, he doesn’t know. Maybe he’s a fucking secret wizard or something. Okay, obviously that’s ridiculous but still. There’s got to be some kind of catch.

*

Six months, Stephen decides, is a good time to show Tony the literal magic. By then he knows plenty about Stephen- like all his favorite movies, that he and Tony vehemently disagree on Die Hard being a good movie, and that Stephen’s sister died when he was ten despite his best efforts to try and save her. No one else on this planet even knows that  _that_  was his motivation for becoming a doctor, no one except Tony.

So when Tony shows up to the sanctum, looking around at the magical artifacts that are mostly just floating around in their glass prisons he thinks he’s already half botched it. There is no future in which Tony reacts well to finding out about magic before he’s out and out shown that it exists. “How did you get them to do that? Some kind of magnet thing?” he asks, grinning over his shoulder at Stephen. He wraps his arms around Tony’s waist and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“Follow me,” he tells Tony, pulling away despite Tony’s protests. He follows Stephen dutifully along until they get to the other students- Stephen has determined that this is the best way to show Tony magic through all his checks of Tony’s reactions in all potential futures. When he sees the students confusion crosses his face for a moment, then skepticism, then something akin to anger. Stephen has never understood Tony’s reactions- not one of them- so he chooses to step back.

“I know you know that I’ve been holding something back. Magic is real, and I’m quite talented at it,” he says stepping back and drawing a circle in the air. A portal appears between him and Tony and he knows Tony will hesitate for almost a fully minute before slowly sticking his hand through and withdrawing it quickly. When nothing bad happens he steps forward again, sticking his whole head through. “Just walk through the damn portal,” Stephen tells him eventually. Tony takes the time to pull himself out and glare at Stephen for a moment before he steps through. Stephen follows after him and closes it behind them.

Tony looks around his penthouse wildly, frowning at his surroundings. “JARVIS?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yes, sir?” the AI responds and Tony blinks rapidly, probably trying to find a scientific explanation for his presence halfway across the world in a matter of seconds. Stephen lets him work it out on his own because pushing Tony only ever ends in screaming matches he’s on the losing end of even if he’s right. Tony has a hard time accepting things he doesn’t believe in, at least in regards to this particular subject, so its best to let him test things. Tony will ask questions eventually, he always does.

“Call Pepper,” he tells the AI. The phone rings a few times over the speaker system before Pepper answers.

“Tony? Aren’t you in Nepal right now? Your flight would have landed what… two hours ago? Go to bed,” Pepper tells him. Stephen smiles, deciding he’s fond of Pepper even if they haven’t officially met.

“What day is it?” Tony asks, frowning because Pepper made direct reference to his flight having  _just_  landed- clearly Stephen hadn’t drugged him and this isn’t some wild trip. Pepper is the control subject and she’s performing well.

“The thirtieth Tony- are you on something? You don’t sound quite right,” she says.

Tony waves a hand around, “yeah, I’m fine Pep. Bye,” he says, offering her no explanation. He turns to Stephen. “Okay what the  _fuck_?” he asks, back to going off script. He’s got an annoying habit of that.

“I told you,” Stephen says, “magic is real. Just be happy you didn’t get my introduction to it- I got thrown through two hundred and seventy five dimensions by a rather crabby old woman,” he says, shaking his head. He still doesn’t even know her name and he resents that.

Tony squints, clearly not believing this so Stephen demonstrates, carefully moving his hands the right way until they’re in the mirror dimension. Tony isn’t stupid, he knows something is off even if he can’t exactly see what it is. “What the fuck is that?” he asks, pointing to the wall Stephen has made in the middle of the room that separates reality from the muted mirror dimension.

“That is where the mirror dimension stops,” he says. “Here things don’t work the same way- Wong and I use it with students learning more dangerous spells because the damage here isn’t permanent.” It is if inflicted on another human being but no student knows enough to be a threat to Wong or Stephen and especially not to both of them combined.

“Did you like… stick me with a needle or something? Don’t give me that face, you used to be a doctor, you know how to use a needle,” Tony rationalizes.

“Yeah, but I’m not exactly fond of drugging the unwitting. Is that really the most logical solution you could come up with?” he asks, a little offended by it.

“This is  _nuts_ ,” Tony says, shaking his head. He turns to walk away and Stephen quickly wills the mirror dimension away and throws a portal at Tony. He yelps as he falls through and Stephen follows after him, neatly landing back in Nepal. He waves the portal away when Tony tries to go back through it. “You can’t just  _keep_  me here,” Tony tells him.

Stephen snorts, “of course not. I would like to point out that you  _do_  have faith in magic though. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have tried to go back through that portal, knowing you’d be home again.” Its the right thing to say because Tony scowls at him, annoyed that Stephen is right.

*

Tony looks up at the sky, curled into Stephen’s side. “Did… you use magic to get to know me so well?” he asks because he’s been dying to know since he reluctantly accepted magic is reality.

Stephen sighs, “not purposefully, no. There’s a stone with the power to manipulate time- I use it to scan the future for possible dangers. I didn’t mean to find you there but you were in every future I ever found of myself.”

He frowns, shifting so he’s leaning up on his elbow looking down at Stephen, who’s stretched across the sanctum roof. “So you’ve meet me however many times you’ve looked into the future?”

“No,” Stephen says, “I’ve watched myself fall in love with you seventeen million five hundred thousand three hundred and fifteen times.”

Seventeen million- ok what the fuck? Tony looks down at him skeptically, wondering if he could determine some kind of truth to that statement. “And this is how you knew me so well, I’m guessing?” he asks and Stephen nods. Hmm. “Did I ever tell you why I hate Howard so much in any of those futures?” Because he hasn’t in this one and if Stephen knows the answer than there has to be some kind of truth to his words.

He nods. “He was abusive to you and your mother. The way you phrased it in most futures is that he never told you he loved you. Never even told you he liked you. He left you these home videos though, telling you that you were the future. You ended up burning them because you didn’t believe a word he said.”

There is no way for Stephen to know that and only three people on this planet know about the videos. Fury might as well count as dead considering he doesn’t dole out secrets  _ever_  and he knows Stephen and Rhodey haven’t met because Rhodey keeps harassing him about meeting Stephen. Phil Coulson probably wouldn’t have told some random guy with a tacky cape that appears to be sentient about those videos either.

“Did you see this too?” he asks, not knowing how else to react.

Stephen shakes his head. “No. Futures are infinite in possibility of course, but you seem to go off script more than most,” he says.

“Hmm,” Tony murmurs more to himself than Stephen.

*

Tony tries to shoo the cape away from him but the damn thing refuses to fly back to Stephen. “Can you stop this thing from molesting me?” he asks.

Stephen sighs, “I can’t stop it from molesting  _me_ , Tony. You’re hopeless. Now come here, I’ve missed you,” he says. Tony is happy enough to go over, trying to shake off the cape as he does with no success, and curls into Stephen’s embrace. Turns out dating a full time sorcerer has its downsides- like his busy schedule he’s been pushing to the wayside for you for months- but Tony doesn’t mind. He’s learned a few tricks too and honestly he’s pleased to never have to deal with another fucking plane ride ever again.

The cape decides this is a good opportunity to wrap itself around Stephen, effectively trapping them in a red cocoon. Stephen sighs, “it won’t stop doing this, I’ve looked. This thing is  _very_  enthused by our relationship and takes every opportunity to show us,” Stephen tells him. Tony laughs, shaking his head.

“Fine. But I’m only putting up with this tacky ass cape because I love you,” he tells Stephen.

Stephen smiles, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “I love you too.”


	7. Cello

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short lil BDSM thing involving a gag and Tony/Nat/Steve.

When Steve gets home he finds Natasha curled up in her chair with a book he knows she’s not reading because Natasha would probably rather die than read a cook book and Tony at her feet. He’s kneeling on his pillow looking much like a scolded dog with a gag in his mouth and when he hears Steve enter the room he turns and gives him the saddest puppy eyes Steve has ever seen. He walks over immediately to free Tony from the gag but Natasha’s foot reaching out to him and pressing against his stomach holds him back.

“Absolutely not,” she tells him, not looking up from her book. 

“He’s sad,” Steve says in his defense. Natasha is far more harsh with her subs than he is with his- humiliation isn’t much what he’s into but Natasha and Tony both have a minor thing for it though Tony tends to be sensitive to what kind of humiliation he likes. Natasha tends to be good at sussing it out anyways and when she isn’t she’s good at apologies. Better than Steve, apologizing isn’t his strong suit and neither is not spoiling his subs. It makes for an interesting dynamic with Natasha that most people are confused by, including Sam, Bucky, and Rhodey and its not like they have a normal relationship agreement either.

“He’s not sad, he likes it,” she tells him.

Tony blinks up at him a few times, long lashes and large brown eyes looking just devastated. “He does not, he looks like a wounded chocolate lab,” Steve says, accidentally slipping his preferred animal counterpart for Tony out. Most people compared him to a deer, his mom used to call him Bambi in Italian, but Steve has always preferred a chocolate lab. Its not like deers look guilty when they’ve gotten into something they shouldn’t have and Tony always rats himself out immediately. Sometimes in hilarious ways like ‘I didn’t just eat an entire large pizza to myself, Natasha did it’ when they both know Natasha doesn’t even  _like_  pizza. She claims Clint ruined it for her when he put mayo and peas on it once.

Natasha peers over her book, shrewd green eyes giving him a  _look_. “That’s because the only thing he likes more than being gagged is playing you like a goddamn fiddle and lately you’re the whole damn orchestra.”

That is absolutely  _not_  true. Tony presses his face to Steve’s leg and he runs his fingers through Tony’s soft hair. “How come you gagged him anyways?” he asks, assuming perhaps not correctly that its some kind of punishment. They have a weird system that he mostly stays out of due to his not knowing what the hell is going on most of the time. But they read each other well and Steve knows what their dynamic looks like by now. He’d been the new element and its not an arrangement he’d expected to like, but its actually a lot more fulfilling than most of his past relationships. With a past as colorful as his finding enough stimulation in normal life can be difficult and Tony and Natasha certainly provide color.

“He wouldn’t shut up,” Natasha says and Steve frowns.

“That’s not a very good reason,” he tells her. Against his leg Tony nods in agreement. “Tony agrees,” he adds.

Natasha glares at him over her book, “hush, you. Its bad enough I had to listen to a four hour rant about Justin fucking Hammer. I just don’t understand how you can hate a man so much when all he did was steal your damn gummy bears when you were six,” she says.

“I don’t think she’s ever had gummy bears,” Steve murmurs at Tony even though he finds no real logic in Tony’s reason for hating Hammer at all. Tony makes a small noise of agreement and nods again.

“Oh Jesus Steve, you couldn’t be played better if you were an actual tuba,” Natasha tells him. Tony lets out a small snort of laughter at this.

Steve, however, is offended. “I wouldn’t be a  _tuba._ I wouldn’t even be a brass instrument, I’d be a cello,” he says.

Natasha squints, “why the fuck do you even  _know_  that?” she asks. “What would I be?” she asks a moment later, curious.

“You’d be a saxophone and Tony would be an electric guitar. Bucky would be a triangle and Sam is an oboe. I don’t have Rhodey figured out yet,” he says. Tony shakes a little at his feet from his laughter, making small noises of amusement.

“Barnes  _would_  be a triangle,” Natasha mumbles, “because he’s fucking useless. And Rhodey would obviously be the conductor.”

“Actually I think that’s fury but I’ll figure Rhodey out eventually,” Steve says.

“Fine, then. But right now the damn conductor is  _Tony_  and you’re one easy to play cello,” Natasha tells him, getting back to their original point.

Tony blinks up at him slowly, nose twitching kind of like a rabbit. “Natasha, talking isn’t a crime, you shouldn’t punish him for it. You know how talkative he is.” Some people, including Steve when they first met, assumed he talked to hear his own voice. Boy did he feel like an asshole when he found out that Tony did a lot of talking because silence reminded him of the clam before or after Howard going on a rampage. Now he has a lot more patience for Tony’s constant chatter. Plus he learns fun things like jellyfish don’t have brains, which Sam had immediately used against Bucky, telling him he must be a jellyfish then.

“It should be when its a four hour rant about a man who only stole some gummy bears as a child,” Natasha mumbles. “He’ll learn his lesson.” Steve pets Tony’s head, silently telling him he’ll get him out of that gag. “Watch him for a minute, I need to go pee,” Natasha tells him, gracefully pulling herself out of the chair and walking away. Steve waits until she’s out of sight before he reaches around the back of Tony’s head and undoes the buckle holding the gag in place.

He doesn’t anticipate Natasha sticking her head back around the corner as he pulls it from Tony’s mouth though. “I left you for two fucking seconds! You have no self control- Tony walks all over you and you let him, He needs guidance, you know,” Natasha tells him. She disappears back around the corner and Steve frowns. Guess she did actually have to pee.

“I don’t think you walk all over anyone,” Steve tells Tony, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and running his fingers through his hair again. Tony grins, looking pleased with himself.


	8. Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A figure skating AU with Tony/ Bucky.

Tony is fucking tired of Bucky moping around. Maybe its because he’s never been the moping type, or maybe its because when Rhodey broke his back he never had a phase where he got depression and stopped showering on a regular basis. Either way he’s tired of watching Bucky lay on the couch all day with one arm feeling sorry for himself. It wouldn’t be so bad if he  _did_  something sometimes, but all he does is cry about his lost career instead of trying to get it back.

So he does what he does best and tries to find the solution to his problem. Well, Bucky’s problem. Tony knows he can still skate, sometimes he finds him on the pond late at night when he’s convinced Tony is sleeping. Which is stupid considering Tony barely sleeps but that’s a whole other problem. Point is he  _knows_  Bucky doesn’t want to give up skating, but doesn’t know why he isn’t trying to get his career back. So now he’s doing the only thing he can and trying not to die on the ice.

He never learned to skate and it shows as he flails around on blades attached to his  _feet_. Who the fuck even thought that was a good idea? Who got on the Danger Water and thought ‘hmm, lets strap blades to me boots and zoom around on this?’ At the moment Tony is cursing whichever asshole that was because he’s going to die on this slippery shit and he’s mad about it. And all because Bucky refuses to move  _on_  from that damn car crash. He got the depression at first, of course he’d be upset about losing an entire  _limb_  but he lost an arm, not his life. He can still do stuff, figure out skating, whatever it is he wants but he’s refusing to do any of that.

His foot catches on something, who the hell even  _knows_  what when ice is  _slippery_  but he lets out a loud yelp as he falls. He swears he sees his life flash before his eyes before he’s caught, thankfully, and hauled back into a vaguely upright position. “What the fuck were you thinking, Tony? Didn’t you hear me yelling at you?” Bucky asks, single arm tight around his waist.

No because he was too busy trying not to  _die_  on water’s shittiest form. “I think you should appreciate my ability to not die. I’ve done a very good job,” he says, grinning at Bucky.

Bucky does  _not_  look impressed. “If I didn’t come out here to save your ass you probably would have nosedived into the ice. You don’t know how to skate Tony, why are you out here?”

Tony wiggles himself free from Bucky’s arm and tries, but ultimately fails, to skate backwards away. He can’t move frontwards let alone backwards so Bucky has to catch him again. He just about slips too, but unlike Tony he knows how to properly catch himself and manages to right them before they both ate ice. “Stop wiggling damnit, you need to get off this pond before you die,” Bucky tells him, trying to push him towards the edge of the pond.

“I’ll get off this pond when I’m good and fucking ready to,” Tony tells him, freeing himself from Bucky’s grasp and moving in the general direction of away. Bucky catches up with him fast of course but he has to skate to do it.

“You’re good and ready to  _now_ , you aren’t even wearing a hat and those skates aren’t tied right. You’re going to break your ankle or worse. Back in the house,” Bucky tells him, trying to prod him to the ponds edge again.

He flails his way away from Bucky, “no, I like it out here,” he says, slipping and letting out a loud yell before Bucky catches him again.

“Tony you hate ice, you once called it proof that Satan exists and you don’t even believe in Satan,” Bucky points out. “So get in the house.”

“No, I’m not going in the damn-” his words are cut off by his slipping on nothing and Bucky catching him again. “I’m still staying out here,” he says, determined.

Bucky sighs, pulling him closer and pinning Tony to his body with his remaining arm. “What are you doing, Tony?” Bucky asks in a softer tone, looking down at him with a concerned expression on his face.

That’s sweet, really. But Tony isn’t the one who needs the concern. “I want you to go back to skating,” Tony tells him. “Or  _something_ , anything. You’ve done basically nothing for a year and its sad to watch.”

“I can’t just go back, Tony. That takes a lot of skill and talent and I don’t have that anymore,” Bucky tells him. He looks sad, dejected, but Tony disagrees with him.

“You lost an  _arm_  Bucky, not all your skills. You need to relearn how to do that stuff with only one arm, but that’s a balance thing, not an ‘I don’t know how to skate’ thing. I’m concerned about you okay?” Someone needs to get him out of the damn house, Steve hasn’t done his best friend duties and did it himself. 

Bucky lets out a soft sigh, “honey, you have no idea what you’re talking about. No offense,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “obviously I have no idea what I’m talking about, I don’t skate. But I see you out here sometimes, and you managed to save my ass like six times from death on this slippery shit with only one arm. I’m sure you can figure things out with one less arm. You look fine when I find out out here at night.”

“Tony you have no idea what to look  _for_ ,” Bucky points out.

“Maybe not, but I know you didn’t lose your skills entirely, you just need to relearn how to do your skating things with one arm instead of two. Now do that and stop watching soap operas, I know the plots now and I don’t like it,” he says, shaking his head. He hates soap operas, Bucky hates soap operas, Tony talks about them so much  _Rhodey_  knows the plots now too and Hope as told him in no uncertain terms that she has no interest in learning about them from Rhodey. He needed to do something, Bucky needs to do something. Change is needed.

“You came out here with no skills and almost died because you don’t like soap operas?” Bucky asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“No, I came out here because you love skating and don’t want to give it up. I thought maybe saving me would give you confidence,” he says.

Bucky laughs, “honey, saving you from the ice is like saving a cat from a bath. Its not hard work.” Tony resents that because he hasn’t run meowing from the water so that’s rude.

*

Steve almost slaps Tony in the face when he sees it, Tony has to duck before Steve’s hand takes him out. “He’s skating!” he all but yells.

“Yeah, I know. He saved me on the pond a couple weeks ago and started skating again after that because he felt bad for me because I know soap opera plots,” he says.

Steve frowns at him. not following that and Tony sighs. Okay so that sounds weird put like that but the point is that Bucky is on the ice. “Whatever, I don’t care if it makes sense he’s skating again!” Steve says excitedly. 

Of course as soon as he says that Bucky falls on his ass and spins around, laying there for a long moment before Tony decides he needs a little encouragement. “Bucky you’ve been out there for like three hours and you only fell once. I fell standing over here looking at you twenty minutes ago,” he yells to him.

In his defense Bucky sits up. “Would it encourage you to know I once blew up my science teacher’s desk because I suck at science?” he yells back.

“Can you recreate that, I think that’d be fun to watch,” Tony yells.

“You’re horrible at this,” Steve tells him. “Bucky, you’re doing fine. You fell every once and awhile before you lost the arm too. Just keep practicing, its not worse than that time with Rumlow!”

Tony squints, “what time with Rumlow? Also who is Rumlow?”

“The guy that got arrested for child trafficking, Tony. He used to be Bucky’s competition, pay attention to someone who isn’t yourself,” Steve tells him.

“Excuse you  _who_  got Bucky back on the ice?” he asks. “That stance makes your ass look fantastic!” he yells to Bucky. Damn, he forgot the only reason he cared to watch Bucky skate. Its pretty and all that but mostly he just likes checking out Bucky’s ass on those pants.

Steve wrinkles his nose at him and Tony flips him off. “Do I need to separate you two?” Bucky tells to them.

“No, we’re great!” they yell back in sync. “We’re going to go get lunch together!” Tony throws in and Steve gives him a horrified look.

“Too far and now he’s going to expect us to do it,” Steve tells him. “Take it back!”

Bucky stops staring at them though, no longer looking for an excuse to not skate. “We can go see a movie, it discourages talking or spending any meaningful time together but people still consider it quality time. I learned this is how Pepper avoids shitty dates and I think it’ll work here,” he says.

Steve nods, “deal, I want to go see that new Disney movie.”

Tony wrinkles his nose, “we’re not watching a fucking  _Disney_  movie Steve, we’re adults.”

*

Bucky looks nervous and Tony smiles at him, “you can’t be worse than me,” he says.

“Baby, I love you but a rat on skates could do better than you. I don’t… I need a coach and Carter is a hardass, she only takes people who are actually good and-” Tony cuts him off.

“You were almost in the Olympics, Bucky, you’re good. Go in and skate.” He gives Bucky a gentle push through the door and he sighs, going in looking more dejected than Tony would like.

He follows, making his way thankfully away from the ice. He doesn’t expect a severe looking woman to approach him looking at him like he’s a steak. “You’re Tony Stark, right?” she asks and Tony frowns.

“Yeah, that’s me. Most people don’t need to ask,” he points out.

“People around here like to imitate your look, its gross,” she tells him. “I’m Peggy Carter and I need you to be honest with me. Barnes, is he willing to put in the work?” she asks. “Close your mouth, I want an honest answer,” she tells him.

Tony sighs and considers it even though he knows the answer. “Yes, but he needs encouragement. He lost his arm and all his confidence went with it. He’ll need more emotional work than most but he’s probably a better skater. I don’t know how to judge skill accurately here if I’m honest,” he tells her.

Peggy snorts, “of course you don’t, but he’s absolutely a better skater. I just wanted to know whether or not he’d be worth my time.”

“You haven’t seen him skate,” Tony says, frowning.

“I’ve been following his career, Stark, we pay attention to these things. That accident was… awful, tragic. But if he’s willing to put in the work to alter his technique he already has the skill, I’ve seen him skate enough to know that,” she says.

“I told him that too!” he says excitedly. So apparently he knows as much as a professional, cool. 

“Don’t let that go to your head, Stark,” she tells him but she smiles as she walks away.

She watches Bucky skate still, and even Tony can see he’s way better than everyone else so he’s doubly unsurprised when Peggy agrees to take him on. Bucky jumps up and down excitedly. “I have a coach!” he says, letting out a loud squee.

Tony smiles, wrapping an arm around Bucky’s waist. “I told you that you’re awesome,” he says. “You’ll do great.”

Bucky wraps his arm around Tony and lets out another noise of excitement. “Thanks so much for getting me off that couch,” he says. “Seriously.”

He presses his face to Bucky’s chest, “well, I really hated those soap operas.”


	9. Ironbat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little Bruce Wayne/ Tony Stark thing because I felt like it lol. (Also Fun Fact about this: Bruce and Tony accidentally end up with like 6 kids in 2 years because they keep bringing home strays though, in Tony’s slight defense, Peter still has May so he’s only half adopted).

Natasha considers Tony for a long moment and its fucking creepy, she doesn’t even blink. It probably doesn’t help that when she first came to America she told him if anyone smiled as much as Americans in Russia she’d punch them in the face but since everyone here does it she keeps that urge to herself. Tony honestly thought smiling was polite but okay.

“What’s he like?” she asks finally.

Oh, she wants to know about Bruce of not the Banner variety. Because they all know what Banner is like. He sighs and Rhodey’s soul dies, Tony sees it, because he knows Tony well enough to know he’s going to say something stupid. “I’m going to give a description and I need you all not to laugh or judge him, okay?” Because Bruce is sweet, and generous, and yeah he’s so dramatic he makes Tony look like an unseasoned chicken breast in comparison but he’s a great guy. He shouldn’t be judged for his dramatics. They don’t judge Tony for his dramatics.

Actually Stephen told him last week that his cars were ostentatious and if  _Stephen_  is talking about Tony’s cars being ostentatious they really must be something.

“He’s a damn furry, isn’t he?” Rhodey says and Tony resents that. Mostly because he wonders if the Batman thing constitutes as being a furry but he doesn’t think so. It is, as far as he knows, just a LARPing thing and its fucking hilarious because no one knows its Bruce Wayne under that dramatic ass cape.

“No he isn’t a furry, T’Challa is a furry,” he throws out there just to make Rhodey cringe. Sam and Rhodey basically  _worshiped_  the guy only to find out the dude dresses up like a panther on the regular.

“That is a religious thing, it’s exempt,” Sam says, throwing out his shitty rationalization that they all know is fake. 

Tony rolls his eyes, “sure, bud. Anyways, Bruce.  _Don’t_  judge him okay, he’s a great guy,” he starts but Rhodey cuts him off.

“If you need to preface this with so much ‘don’t judge him’ he probably sucks,” he points out.

Pepper frowns, “we preface Tony with a lot more than this,” she says.

Tony is offended, truly. “Okay you know what, Bruce is the kind of guy who would say ‘hello darkness my old friend’ unironically and  _yeah_  that’s needlessly dramatic but we’re all needlessly dramatic here so no one should judge him for it,” he tells them all.

They all start laughing immediately like a bunch of twats. “What the hell, Stark?” Bucky asks and Tony squints at him.

“You texted everyone in our group chat ‘I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory’ when your cat stole your garlic bread. Rhodey, you drove a whole ass  _tank_  into a military bunker as a fuck you to your superiors. Stephen had that weird ‘sorcerer supreme’ phase and forced us all to call his cape a cloak. Natasha got memes banned in Russia  _and_  North Korea. Steve has told half the members of congress to fuck off to their  _faces_  and Sam made an AI he named Redwing because Bucky refused to let him get a falcon. Not a single one of you have a place to judge Bruce,” he tells them.

They all look properly shamed except Pepper, who grins. “I am not needlessly dramatic like the rest of you so I have all the right in the world to judge,” she tells them and Tony snorts.

“Oh hell no you do not. You’ve decided you hate fellow CEOs so much that you refuse to address them, only their wives. You once told Justin Hammer that you would rather drink paint thinner than spend another second with him. You punched Aldrich Killian into a pool because he made me uncomfortable. You once told a reporter that people fear you because you have the energy of a Lovecraftian monster. You are not exempt,” he tells her.

Sam laughs, “I remember the Lovecraft thing. You ended up being a lesbian meme for awhile after that,” he says.

Tony remembers that too, it had been around when the Babadook was a gay meme. Monsters were a thing that week.

“Is Bruce seriously that dramatic? I thought he mostly read to kids and whatever,” Rhodey says and yeah, he does that too. And a lot of charity work in orphanages. It’d been how they met- sometimes when Tony is sad he goes to hospitals and holds babies and Bruce happened o be donating money to that particular hospital and found him crying over a small premie that was so sweet and precious. They hit it off pretty easily but yes, Bruce is so dramatic he may give Stephen a run for his money.

“Yeah, he is one hundred percent that dramatic. You’ll find out,” he says. Granted most of Bruce’s dramatics went to his Batman character- Tony struggled not to laugh out loud when he heard Bruce unironically say ‘I am the night’ but he’s dramatic elsewhere too.

“Find out what?” Bruce asks, coming up behind them, smiling. Tony has never had a thing for classic Hollywood hot- too fifties for his tastes, but Bruce makes it feel different. Maybe its because nothing about him aside from his classic looks remind Tony of the past or maybe its something else, he doesn’t know.

“Holy Christ, are you even  _in_  there anymore?” Bucky asks, jabbing him in the side with his finger. Tony smacks his hand away after jumping a little.

“Yes, now keep your fingers away from me,” he tells him. “We were talking about you being dramatic,” he tells Bruce for reference.

Bruce’s eyebrows draw together, “ _I’m_  dramatic?” he asks. “Don’t you have a friend who insisted you called him ‘sorcerer supreme’?” he asks.

Right, Tony forgot about that too. “Yeah, Stephen got a little in character and none of us knew what the character was for but he’s mostly okay now, he’s chilled out a little. Come sit,” he says, shooing at Bucky to get out of the spot beside Tony. Bruce tries to move towards the only empty seat that is, for some damn reason, beside Sam but Tony pulls him back and continues to pester Bucky to go sit beside his damn boyfriend.

When he discovers they’re currently in the middle of an argument he’s not surprised, he’s watched the two of them get into it over Steve’s cat that died when he was ten of all things, but he’s damn annoyed to discover that this particular fight is about Sam not finding bats cute. Bruce lets out a small shiver and Tony holds onto him a little tighter, knowing about his fear of bats.

Honestly that only makes Batman that much more dramatic because Bruce fucking dresses up as his worst fear. Jesus, he really does have a talent for finding people who are so dramatic they could blend into a comic book easily. Bucky moves his ass  _finally_  and Bruce sits next to him and looks around. He pinpoints Rhodey as the most important at the table easily and Tony will never understand how he does that. It takes him ten seconds flat to find the person at the top of any food chain and he can figure out how to exploit them in another ten seconds. Its actually useful in business and Tony is surprised that Bruce’s success comes from reading people so well. But then Bruce thought he could do that too and had been surprised that Tony was just following math no one else saw. Pepper can do it now too so that’s neat, usually he can’t teach for shit.

“Tony has told me about your military career, you recently got promoted, didn’t you?” Bruce asks and Rhodey leans into it easily, going off on a tangent about his recent promotion and how he got it. Bruce smiles and listens easily, asking all the right questions because he’s freakishly good at people if they weren’t in a relationship with him. If they were, well, Alfred told Tony he has a fear of being close to people thanks to that time his parents got shot right in front of him as a kid. Tony thinks he deals with it well, or at least well enough that Alfred gives him advice and he’s seen how protective the old man is of Bruce. He’d chase Tony out of the mansion without a second thought if he thought he was a bad choice on Bruce’s behalf.

Natasha watches Bruce’s exchanges keenly because she’s as good at people as he is but when he gets to addressing her- right after congratulating Pepper on her recent multimillion dollar deal that no one else thought was a good idea but Bruce did for the exact reasons she did- he manages to find her soft spot too. “I’ve read about your rat rescue- I had no idea you could buy rescue rats but I suppose they might need it more than most. Its not like people care if rats are mistreated- people mostly want them dead,” he says.

She perks up, “and they’re very clean contrary to popular belief,” she says.

Bruce nods, “I used to have rats as a child. They’re smart as hell too, probably a little too smart for their own good actually. They were both escape artists and Alfred, my butler, was not impressed to find them in the kitchen more often than not,” he says and Natasha laughs. With that he somehow manages to win her over too despite the fact that she’s impossible to please and probably wants to punch him because he smiles.

And Bruce thought this was going to go  _badly_.

*

Bruce is sure he’s managed to screw everything up given how utterly silent Tony has been through the whole dinner. Tony isn’t normally silent- he errs more on the side of dominating the conversation if only by accident but through this entire thing he’s said next to nothing. So by the time they leave he’s worried he’s somehow managed to say something wrong but he can’t for the  _life_  of him figure out what it is. He did his research- all of Tony’s friends are as impressive as he is in their own right and he made sure to acknowledge that- the fastest way to impress Tony was to recognize worth in others and Bruce finds it both telling and strange. 

He’s never met someone who’s so attracted to the ability to recognize talent in others but Tony has a clear...  _thing_  for it. Maybe because he recognizes potential in the strangest of ways and in odd areas too- its just part of the way his mind works- and Bruce seems to be the only one who picks up on this aspect of Tony’s personality. And the potential Tony sees. Tony thinks he’s bad at people but he isn’t, he just sees them differently and this isn’t really odd considering he sees  _everything_  differently. What Tony is bad at is finding conventional ways to relate to people and Bruce likes that about him. It makes him feel less dangerous, somehow, like maybe if he’s different this relationship will be different too. He’s never been good at relationships, Selena knows that better than most.

“How the hell do you manage to  _do_  that?” Tony asks when they leave. 

Bruce has no idea what he means and his gut twists a little, worried that he’s managed to botch this too. For the first time since... he hasn’t felt like running and he doesn’t want to do something to make it end. “Do what?” he asks.

Tony frowns, “win people over like that. I’ve never met anyone who managed to make Natasha go from suspicious to smitten like that  _ever_ ,” he says.

Well, it might help him to know Natasha isn’t smitten, she’s just convinced that Bruce isn’t horrible. Its the best she’ll ever think of him most likely, she’s not the kind of person who would ever fully trust another person, but Bruce already knew that when they met. But he does at least relax because he hasn’t done something wrong, Tony is just impressed with his people skills again. Its an odd trait to hone in on, but its that, his generosity, his love of children, and his ability to disagree with Tony that draws him in. That’s probably the strangest combination Bruce has run into but he doesn’t dislike it either. Those happen to be the traits, minus his ability to manipulate people, that he finds most admirable about himself too.

“I just did my research, Tony,” he says. Its all he’s ever needed to do.

Tony smiles and leans into his side, “yeah well, was ready to write you off and now he thinks I’m lying about how dramatic you are so obviously your research paid off,” he says.

Bruce wraps an arm around Tony’s waist, “Tony he doesn’t think I’m dramatic because he doesn’t know about Batman and you’re not going to tell him. If Cobblepot finds out who I am he’ll use it against me,” he says and Tony bursts out laughing.

“I love you, but this LARPing thing is ridiculous. Endearing, but ridiculous. You  _do_  know Cobblepot works in a bank, right? He’s not nearly as impressive as The Penguin even if he sucks at names,” Tony says.

Yes, Bruce knows that already. “I’m aware of all my foes, thank you. Harley Quinn is a psychiatrist who’s real name is Harleen Quinzel and her girlfriend is Poison Ivy,” he says. Pamela a botanist and a very well known environmental activist too, Tony has read her work when considering his green energy projects, actually.

“Jesus Christ, this is  _so_  dramatic. How the hell did you get half of Gotham involved in a LARP?” Tony asks.

Well, that’s just an exaggeration. There’s certainly not that many people in the game and frankly Bruce doesn’t care if he’s winning.


	10. Signals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I gotta do everything my gotdamn self this is an AU with Tony/ Bucky/ Sam. There is deadass NOTHING of this pairing on AO3. Its just a random thing based on a convo I had with a friend earlier in the day in which we were all trying to Name That Wifi.
> 
> (The wifi was later named 1-800-R-U-Slappin. My suggestion, of course. My personal favs were 'Justin Trudeau's Thrussy' and 'Vore me Daddy'. One was me, one was not, guess which is which lmao. I can see why said friend went with neither though. The other wifi names in this were all my suggestions as well. Because I'm a comedic genius ok).

Sam lets out a loud peal of laughter he’d be embarrassed about if he didn’t live alone. HIs neighbor, some rich asshole who is unfairly attractive but sadly taken by what looks like a raccoon human mutation that also does not have any business pulling  _that_  off, has named his Wifi ‘Mothman Ate My Ass’. He calls Ororo because this is too damn good not to tell anyone about but she doesn’t find it nearly as amusing as him. Her husband, Thor, on the other hand almost dies laughing. Must be the cultural difference, Sam thinks, and also he pities Egypt for missing out on this comedy gold.

*

Tony knows he can’t refuse to rent to people who are ugly, that’s obviously stupid, but also Sam Wilson is the kind of hot you find in  _movies_  and he was not letting that one get away. It helped that he came with the best references a person could have, a stable high paying job, and a sense of humor even if he also has that fucking  _bird_  that squawks at six a.m for food like clockwork. It just made sense to rent out the apartment suite below to him even if he maybe has his own ulterior motives for it. That’s not like... discrimination to everyone else, right?

He’d ask Bucky but when he comes in he’s drooling so he obviously ran into Sam. “Where the hell did you  _find_  that new guy? A fucking action movie? Like with good actors and stuff,” he says.

“If you can believe it Natasha sent him our way,” he says. “Its not discrimination to take him because he’s hot, right?” he asks, stuck on his moral dilemma.

Bucky frowns, “I think its only discrimination if you don’t take him because he’s ugly.”

“Well I didn’t take anyone  _else_  because  _they_  were all uglier. Sam gets pretty privilege. Also he actually has great references,” he says in his defense.

“Then great, you would have taken him regardless. We need to get that guy into our bed  _stat_ , do you have a plan?” he asks.

Tony sighs, “no because every time  _I_ try this I get slapped, told off, and on one creative occasion my mother was called and then she called my aunt Peggy and I had to hide in Romania for three and a half months. Then she found me and thankfully was mostly forgiving when I explained myself. Anyways, point is I think you should deal with the approach,” he says. Less slapping and mom calling that way.

Bucky grins, “we met in Romania, were you hiding from your aunt then?” he asks and Tony nods.

“She’s the terrifying woman who broke up our date,” he tells Bucky.

He laughs, “I liked her. So okay I guess, I’m in charge of not making a fool of us both with Sam. Resign yourself to drooling from afar,” Bucky tells him, losing faith fast but Tony knows his husband well. His weird brand of charm will more than likely work.

*

The Wifi name changes regularly and this morning’s ‘These Joots Are Made For Walkin’ almost kills Sam at six in the damn morning. Redwing had been squawking for food like he starves her and he’d checked the Wifi just for fun and found that. He’s leaving for work still giggling to himself about it when he runs into Unfairly Hot But Resembles A Raccoon Neighbor. How is it that this guy can pull off the ‘I didn’t get enough sleep’ look when Sam would look like Satan’s taint warmed over?

“Hey,” he says, grinning. “Nice Wifi names.”

Raccoon nearly shorts out, looking kind of like a machine that’s glitching and supposedly his neighbor is some kind of hotshot inventor so hell, maybe Hot Raccoon really is glitching. “Um, yeah. Tony and I take tuns naming the Wifi,” he says when he regains his bearings.

“Who’s the one that chose Mothman?” he asks, curious.

Racoon grins, “that was me. I’m Bucky, by the way,” he says.

“Sam. Don’t think I met you at the showing,” he says even though they both damn well know they haven’t met.

“We didn’t, but my husband happens to have good instincts for this kind of thing. I mean you have a bird that’s more reliable than our alarms, but you know. Actually Tony is terrible at this, but the bird isn’t even in the top ten shit things we’ve dealt with thanks to his bad decisions so I’ll take it,” he says.

Shit, they can hear Redwing. She’s loud but someone has some damn thin walls. “In her defense she gets hungry and I can’t just starve her out,” he says. “If I do she gets louder, we had this battle years ago.”

*

Bucky looks unimpressed, “we have a twenty minute conversation about his  _bird_ , Tony. His fucking bird. I’m terrible at this, you do it,” he says.

If Bucky thinks  _he’s_  bad Tony is probably ten times worse. “Honey, I’m not kidding about being slapped. Seriously, I’m no good at people, you know that.”

“Can’t be worse than actual bird talk,” Bucky mumbles. It probably can, but in the interest of making things get a fucking  _move_  on he figures he’ll try it.

*

He finds Sam outside laughing by his car. “‘Ding Dong The Bitch (Margret Thatcher) Is Dead’?” he asks and Tony grins.

“That one was my brain child. Technically I had the joots one too but Bucky thought that was so funny he let me have his turn.” And all this out of a conversation about Tony’s rather strong dislike of the president. Unfortunately the current leader of the free world if fucking incompetent but the good news is that he’s old so Tony’s hoping for a death soon. Which resulted in his current houseguest that will  _not_  be invited back over whining about disrespect. Tony threw out a reminder of that the the British pushed Ding Dong The Witch is Dead back into the UKs singles charts after Thatcher died. Clearly they weren’t worried about disrespect assuming the person on the other end deserved it.

Hence the Wifi name that had Bucky busting a gut laughing. Sam smiles, “you’ve got a thing for humor, Bucky too,” he says.

Tony shrugs, “well, when you get stuck in business meetings all day you have to get your soul back somehow.” God, he hates Board meetings but they’re a necessary evil. 

Sam grins, “so you work in business, then?” he asks and wow, a person who doesn’t recognize him. That doesn’t happen often these days.

“Yeah, I own a business,” he says, curious to see how long it’ll take to click in.

“Anything I’ve heard of?” Sam asks, totally ruining his fun right away given that no one hasn’t heard of Stark Industries. When he tells Sam the name of the company he lets out a long sigh. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. I’m the dumbest bitch alive,” he says dramatically and Tony laughs.

“I mean, could have been worse. If anyone genuinely mistook me for Justin Hammer I’d actually jump off a cliff. You could always make it up to me with dinner,” he says, giving Sam a winning smile even though that’s so fucking skeezy he debates on having a personal meeting with that cliff now.

Sam squints, than looks at his ring finger and squints some more. “Aren’t you married?” he asks like he doesn’t already know the answer.

“Yeah, he won’t care,” Tony says because its  _true_  but it sure as fuck doesn’t come out sounding good that way.

“Hmm, that’s sketchy,” Sam tells him and walks away, thankfully avoiding slaps.

Holy fuck was Bucky wrong when he thought  _birds_  were the worst that could happen.

*

Bucky is on his way back home when Sam calls for his attention. Tony already warned him that he managed to fuck up worse than Bucky so he’s sort of expecting it, but when Sam blatantly tells him Tony’s fucking around in like four seconds flat he has to laugh. Sam looks confused as hell and that makes this even better. “Yeah, its fine, we have an open relationship type agreement- works best for both of us. Its sweet that you’d tell me though,” he says.

It genuinely is- most people wouldn’t want to interfere, or they wouldn’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings or whatever so its nice to know Sam’s honest even if its a little brutally so.

“Oh what the hell. I snubbed him and he was right? No I feel like an ass,” Sam mumbles.

Bucky shrugs, “if your defense, he probably didn’t word whatever proposition he made well. He sucks at people.”

Sam laughs, “he’s not that bad. That actually works for you though, the open relationship thing?”

He nods, “more of less. We can’t be each other’s everything, its not possible so we both figured why even try to do something we know we’ll fail at? We both already have people to supplement in what we don’t get from the other anyways.” Bucky will never hold a flame to Rhodey’s sharp wit and ability to keep up with Tony’s intelligence, and Tony won’t be able to replicate that feeling of safety that Steve gives him. He can’t, not without having lived with Bucky by his side his entire life, and its not like Bucky can grow a higher IQ. What’s the difference if sometimes that means other partners? Most of the time they end up choosing someone together anyway.

“You’re not worried he’ll like... leave you?” Sam says and Bucky shrugs.

“If he does that person is obviously better suited to him. Its selfish to want to stand in the way of that. Like it’d suck obviously, but if he actually chose to leave than its because the other person does a lot of stuff I can’t. Don’t think that’ll happen though,” he says confidently. Tony is... not the average person, and most people are only happy to put up with that in small doses. People like Bucky, Rhodey, and Pepper are kind of rare in his life and he’s too suspicious of being hurt to venture out long enough to actually get attached. Of course once he is he’s like a damn barnacle but still.

“You seem pretty convinced,” Sam says and Bucky shrugs.

“We’ve been together for almost seven years, he hasn’t found anyone better yet.” To be fair he’s kind of a lot but still, he’s vastly underappreciated. Bucky thinks they get along so well due to both of their personalities being hard to handle. When Bucky is fine, he’s fine. But when he’s not he’s a disaster and people tend to be bad at handling his mood swings.

Sam shakes his head, “guess you have good reason for the confidence then.”

*

“You might be shit with people but I managed to use your faux pas to get a movie date,” Bucky tells him and Tony grins.

“See, you’re much more charming than me,” he says.

“I am not more charming, you accidentally did most of the work for me and also it took like five seconds for Sam to rat you out. Turns out he’s fond of being petty,” Bucky says.

*

What the hell does a person do when they’re invited to a threesome? Sam has never been in this situation and usually he’d call Riley but Riley is dead so now what the hell does he do? He stands in Tony and Bucky’s probably very expensive living room contemplating what he’s doing with his life before he decides to just ask. “So um. What are we doing?” he asks.

Tony and Bucky share a look and Sam sees the history there in the silent communication. They don’t even need to speak to have an entire conversation. Shit, no wonder Bucky had been so nonplussed in regards to the possibility that Tony would leave him. Its obvious they have a strong connection.

“Actually that’s mostly you. We already know each other, you’re the new element,” Tony tells him. “We find this works best if you set the pace.”

How many times did they experiment to figure  _that_  out? Though now that he says it it seems obvious. “No pressure,” Sam mumbles.

“Ideally, yeah,” Bucky says. “Popcorn?” he asks, holding out a bowl. Sam takes it because what else is he supposed to do here?

*

Bucky is cackling as Sam tells them about that time he stole his superior’s left shoe laces for three months straight. Tony has to admit that one is good and he’s  _totally_  passing that one along to Rhodey. “The man was a goddamn asshole. He kept asking me for tech advice and then got mad when he didn’t listen to my advice and shit got messed up. So I stole the shoe laces off the man’s left shoe for three months. Every single left shoe that had a lace, actually.”

“How did you not get caught?” Tony asks.

Sam grins, “oh he checked the cameras, set up a bunch of his own too but I was the damn tech guy. Did he really think I didn’t know how to run a time loop long enough to erase my presence in his room? Or find and alter the footage on his cameras? Okay, he put me in charge of his cameras. Bad choice, in hindsight.”

“And he never figured out it was the guy in charge of the footage?” Bucky asks.

Sam shakes his head, “said I was ‘too polite’ to have done something like that. What an idiot,” he says, laughing.

Tony snorts, “wow. And I thought ‘accidentally’ forwarding all my father’s incriminating sex emails with all his mistresses to every single news outlet, my mother, and my aunt Peggy was petty. That’s like... such a minor problem that messes up so many things that it is a level of petty I aspire to be,” he says. Left shoe laces, he never would have thought.

“That’s not even the pettiest thing I’ve ever done. After I got home from Iraq I lived next to this crotchety old man that liked to bitch when I accidentally cut this small strip of land that was between our houses. Thing was this decrepit old geezer never cut the spot himself and I didn’t want the space between our yards to have a mohawk because the petty old man refused to mow it. So I snuck over to his house and took the hub caps off his car, stuffed a bunch of shrimp in there, stuck them back on, and left the shrimp to rot in the middle of the high summer heat. He spent  _weeks_  looking for the source of the stench before trying, and failing, to sell his car. And I cut the mohawk every week and found proof that it was on my property so I could cut it if I damn well pleased,” he says.

Start to finish, Tony decides, that was a wild ride. “Once, this kid was being a dickhead to Steve so I slashed his tires,” Bucky says.

Tony frowns, “that’s illegal,” he points out.

Bucky squints at him, “coming from the guy who hacked the Pentagon because Justin Hammer told him he couldn’t do it and landed himself on a terrorist watch list for almost two decades that’s a joke.”

Oh, right. He forgot about that. “In my defense Justin Hammer is a scourge on this earth and also I did it so all his laughing was for nothing. It took fifteen minutes, they aren’t smart. Also slightly in my defense but not really I hacked some other government agencies because the military refused to give Rhodey a vacation and that’s why Agent pays a visit every week. I was supposed to be on house arrest for like five years but aunt Peggy pulled some strings and threatened to kill me a time or ten for being dumb. Rhodey got the vacation though so I mean they’re still recovering from me scrambling their systems but I got what I wanted.”

Sam and Bucky exchange a look. “You married this?” he asks and Bucky shrugs.

“He had the best offer. I mean be rich in America? Hell yeah.”

Sam raises an eyebrow, “you’re not American?” he asks, probably because Bucky doesn’t have an accent. Well, he does, but its a Brooklyn accent.

“I have a dual citizenship with Romania. I grew up in Brooklyn but that’s where my family is from. Anyways I was poor here, then I was poor in Romania, and then I met Tony and now I’m rich in America. I don’t really mind being one step away from a mail order bride,” he says casually. 

Sam snorts, “yeah, that’s not a bad deal.”

*

Okay he needs to tell  _someone_  and the best he’s got is Riley’s grave. “You need to give me a sign or something because all I wanted was a good laugh at the Wifi names- this mornings is ‘Tricky Dick Was In On It’. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, but I laughed so hard when I read ‘Tricky Dick’ that for once I woke Redwing up. So like. Get your ghost ass up, get to a Ouija board that isn’t in my house because you know I don’t fuck with that shit, and tell me what to do.”

Obviously Riley does nothing, lazy bastard, so he leaves to go find some real friends to ask about his threesome problem.

*

Natasha rolls her eyes, “I am not giving you advice. I didn’t give Sam advice, I’m not giving you advice,” she tells Bucky and Tony. Damn useless boys, they all like each other, problem fucking solved. But when she tells them that they short circuit like the solution can’t be that easy. It totally  _is_  but they won’t listen to that.

“Wait,” Bucky says, “Sam asked your for advice?”

She rolls her eyes again, “yeah, so go talk to  _him_  about your feelings instead of me. Damn men,” she mumbles. Across the room Pepper gives her a pitying look and boy would she know given that she’s dealt with Tony for longer than any human should have to. The woman deserves a Nobel Prize.

*

They all sit confused because Natasha is useless, they’ve all agreed. “There hasn’t even been a threesome yet,” Sam says and Tony snorts.

“Shit, if that’s what you were waiting for take off your damn pants.”

Bucky laughs, “or you know, we could have a conversation.” Probably the best course of action, he figures. They didn’t really expect to get along with Sam so well but its not exactly a bad thing.

“I’m in favor of pants removal, who’s with me?” Sam asks. Tony raises his hand and Bucky sighs. 

“You guys are assholes, we have to talk about it but I guess fine, have it your way. 

“Keep that attitude up and I’ll start stealing the shoelaces to your left shoes,” Sam tells him and they all laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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